Nicholas Potter’s “Enterprise Dog Power” treadmill, designed to power butter churns and other small farm machines, ca. 1881.

A 90-minute relay race of sorts, this sweat-filled event featured 24 writers and artists taking turns reading texts on the notion of speed while jogging/running/ambling on three treadmills positioned side-by-side. Each reader's contribution was a maximum of 4 minutes and was drawn from a novel, manifesto, poem, philosophical treatise, children’s story, timetable, recipe, parable, scientific experiment, instructional manual, dictionary, or any other relevant genre.

Huge thanks to Definitions Gym for hosting this event. This event was Cabinet’s contribution to Performa ‘09. A version of “Speed Reading” previously took place in Montreal at the Canadian Centre for Architecture.